The present invention relates to systems for recording diskettes, and more particularly to a transport device for controllably feeding diskettes into a recorder or duplicating machine, and for transporting the diskettes away from the machine after the recording process has been completed.
Recording and duplicating equipment is widely used in the manufacture of computer software disks for sale in the software industry. Computer programs which are developed for commercial licensing and distribution are typically packaged in one or more prerecorded disks, and the disks are sold or licensed to the user in conjunction with supporting literature and documentation. The vehicle for packaging such programs is either in the form of a 51/4 inch diameter floppy disk, or a 31/2 inch diameter diskette, depending upon the type and brand of the user's computer equipment. The present invention is primarily directed to the duplicating of 31/2 inch diskettes, although the principles described herein may be applied to other magnetic or optical recording media.
Commercial demand for popular computer software necessitates the production of literally thousands of copies of the software on prerecorded magnetic diskettes. Each of these magnetic diskettes are individually recorded in a magnetic drive device, and the recorded data is checked and verified as to accuracy and completeness. Machines which accomplish these functions are available to the software developers in the form of diskette duplicators, which are largely automated to provide a large number of prerecorded diskettes in a relatively short period of time. The transport mechanisms which feed unrecorded diskettes into these machines are also highly automated, and are adapted to handle the diskettes at a rate commensurate with the recording rate in the diskette duplicator. Such a transport device has a feeding mechanism which enables the transport to receive a serial stream of unrecorded diskettes, and the transport mechanism inserts each of the received diskettes into the magnetic drive mechanism for recording, and after the recording has been completed the transport receives the ejected and recorded diskette and moves it along a path for further manufacturing operational steps. For each diskette which is handled, the transport device goes through a series of predefined movements and steps, which must be carefully and sequentially arranged so that any failure in the transport operation can be immediately detected to stop the system and permit repair operations to be accomplished.